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David Leon Moore

USA TODAY Sports

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Austin Hatch and his grandmother Peg Hatch after the press conference held today at Lolola High School. / USA TODAY/Jayne Kamin-Oncea

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LOS ANGELES — Tragedy never will be fully behind Austin Hatch. But the Michigan basketball signee showed again Wednesday he has not lost hope — whether he ever becomes a high-level player again.

“I feel like God has his hand on me,” Hatch said during a news conference in Los Angeles. “I feel like there’s a plan for my life.”

Surviving two plane crashes will make one feel like that.

In June 2011, Hatch was a passenger in a small plane, piloted by his father, that crashed. His father and stepmother were killed. Eight years earlier, his father was the pilot in another crash that killed Hatch’s mother and two siblings.

After the second crash, Hatch was placed in a medically induced coma for eight weeks. He had a traumatic brain injury, a broken collarbone and a punctured lung.

The second crash came two weeks after Hatch, a 6-foot-6 wing at Canterbury School in Ft. Wayne, Ind., had verbally committed to play at Michigan. He has not played in a competitive basketball game since the crash.

Despite that, when coach John Beilein announced his 2014 recruiting class last week, Hatch was included.

Even if his game does not return to the point where he can play Division I basketball, Hatch said, he will still be a member of the Michigan basketball family.

“(Beilein) told me that he wouldn’t offer me a scholarship if he didn’t think I had a role on the team that would help them win,” Hatch said in his first extended interview since speaking to the Detroit Free Press in April 2012. “He said, ‘Austin, whatever you are able to do, whether it be a manager or a practice player or whatever, you’re on scholarship no matter what.’ ”

Hatch moved this summer from Indiana to Pasadena, Calif., to live with an uncle’s family and attend a senior year of high school at Loyola, a tony Catholic private school in the shadow of downtown Los Angeles. He is practicing with the team and hopes to play, but a date for his return is unclear.

“What once was second nature, now I have to think about that stuff,” he said. “That’s going to take some more time. But I’ve been working on my fundamentals. I’ve been working on anything and everything to get back on the court.”

When Hatch awoke from his coma after the second crash, it took him awhile to process that he had lost his family.

“I was dealing with the loss of my best friend, my coach, my teacher, my mentor and my No. 1 fan — that same man was also my father, Dr. Stephen Hatch,” he said.

“He taught me everything — the work necessary to succeed, faith, determination and courage in the midst of hardship. Those traits I acquired from him are what saved my life.”

His physical, emotional and mental recovery has been slow but steady.

“I had to relearn how to walk and talk,” he said. “I had to relearn everything. It was like I was born again. I was set back several years.”

Wednesday, he spoke calmly, confidently and articulately but said he was not where he once was in cognitive ability.

“A lot of people have said my recovery is kind of a miracle,” Hatch said. “But you have to remember the significance of what I’ve been through. I had a traumatic brain injury.”

He said when he awoke from the coma, and later, when he needed a wheelchair to get around, he told people he was going to play basketball again.

“There were people who doubted me,” he said. “I told them thank-you for your opinion, but I’m going to prove you wrong. It may have sounded far-fetched coming from a guy in a wheelchair, but I’ve always believed that my time is coming.”

Hatch said it had been difficult to find someone who could completely relate to his situation.

“It would be interesting to talk to someone who has been through something similar,” he said. “But I haven’t found him yet. I’m not sure anyone — I don’t know for sure — I’m not sure anyone has been in two plane crashes.”